November 2017

“Success” is an empty goal

If you want to slam your head in a door when you see the Gary Vee fanboys’ HUSTLE!! GRIND!! #ENTREPRENEUR posts on Instagram — this one’s for you ;) There are currently 10.6 million Instagram posts under #hustle: the “hyper-achiever” trend is out of control. And aside from being a generally annoying internet sub-culture, the truth is that chasing “success” — where “success” is defined as being a larger-than-life, work-23.5-hours-a-day charismatic #entrepreneuer — is dangerous, and it’s just plain dumb to ignore that truth. What nobody seems to want to acknowledge is that achieving “great” things — the kind of things people write Fast Company articles and Medium thinkpieces about — almost always requires some extremely difficult sacrifices. And I don’t mean trivial stuff like waking up a little earlier than you’d like to or foregoing a camping trip with your friends — I mean the truly painful shit like your physical and mental health, family, and relationships. Permanent, irreversible stuff that keeps you up at night and haunts…